Overlapping circles

Listening to the radio, I caught an interview with a young Port Vale footballer, Chris Birchall. As is the way when listening to an interview already in progress, you sort of fill in the bits you missed as you go along. Birchill, who was born in Tunstall, Stoke on Trent, described his problem understanding the local Trinidadian accent and the various local phrases. As the interview went on, it was clear he was chatting about his experience of playing with the Trinidad and Tobago national side. In my minds eye I had imagined a player like Dwight Yorke, but with a Northern accent.

It never occurred to me that Birchall was describing Trinidad as a culture shock simply because it was one. I had assumed, wrongly, that Birchall was of black Trinidadian descent - he isn't. This was a bizarre assumption on my part, as there are plenty of Europeans in the Caribbean, and its quite common to see a white face using the local patois. As it happened Birchall's mother was born in Trinidad.

What I did pick up from the radio but didn't notice at first was that Birchall actually enjoyed playing for Trinidad. It wasn't a duty, or necessarily an honour. He did not feel that he was a necessary part in the destiny of the "Soca Warriors". Like most professionals, he would hate to be injured on national friendly duty and be unable to play for his club. His occasional trips from Port Vale to Port of Spain certainly helped the young guys in the T + T team, who he probably enjoyed liming with afterwards.

In terms of national identity this seems to be the inverse of Rio Ferdinand. He plays for his country - as far as I know he knows no other. He clearly feels it is his duty - both in the professional and epic sense. Anyone even vaguely aware of his current press or his former problems would seriously doubt how much he can be enjoying his success. Despite the casual racism that he has encountered as a black Londoner, and as a black sports man earning good money, he shows an indifference to his perceived image that contrasts with his part in England's football renaissance.

These examples show the sporting world’s corner of the nationality vs identity conundrum. You may be British, but are you British? Norman Tebbits infamous cricket test already looks simplistic. In his view, nationality and identity were rough circles around the same area. An Asian man living in Leeds and supporting Pakistan was somehow an invalid choice; some sort of out of bounds software error. The reality is that there exists a valid place on the Venn diagram for this set, and most other combinations. Identity and nationality can overlap at different places and still be linked. What we don't know is what effect the combination will have on life and thinking. Thierry Henry and a Parisian suburban anarchist pyromaniac may both be dots in the same place on the diagram.

Sport takes nationality fairly loosely at the best of times. Or rather, in order to cast the net wide, rules are relaxed. At one time it seemed that to play for Ireland the requirement was only that one of your grandparents had sipped a pint of Guinness.

Now compare this with the man who made his identity up by stealing a babies passport. He was described as "living a lie", a reasonably predictable response. But his crime now appears to reflect on his children:

A UK Passport Service spokesman said: "We will be reviewing the issue of the passports as there may be issues of nationality and identity.

"We don't know anything about the father and there's nothing to say that he is British. We will have to review the state of those applications. There are very strict rules on entitlement to a British passport, one being the need to be a British citizen. "

The children can hold onto their travel documents while the review is taking place, the spokesman said.

Issues of nationality and identity - the spokesman correctly realised that both circles on the diagram are just conceptual and can disappear in a puff of bureaucracy. You are not what you do. You certainly are not who you say you are. At best you are what someone else describes you as, until they decide to rub out the lines and place you elsewhere.